The possible influence of hyperadrenocorticism on the foetus of the diabetic woman.

The newborn infant of the diabetic mother is large and heavy when compared with the normal baby of the same gestation, and his hazardous intra-uterine course may be followed by a stormy neonatal one, and possibly by death within the first few days of life. It seems rational to believe that the foetal gigantism, the high foetal loss rate and the increased neonatal morbidity and mortality may be attributable to the same basic disorder. The babies with few exceptions resemble one another so closely at birth that they might well be related and this external similarity is paralleled by the similarity of their morbid pathology. These morphological features exist irrespective of the mother's age at the onset of clinical diabetes, her somatotype or her response to injected insulin.